


and i did not mean to shout, just drive

by smithens



Series: and it's my heart, not me, who cannot drive [2]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Driving, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flirting, Getting to Know Each Other, Homophobia, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Mutual Attraction, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-24 11:40:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21337630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithens/pseuds/smithens
Summary: The drive back to Downton raises more questions than it answers.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Series: and it's my heart, not me, who cannot drive [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1535195
Comments: 24
Kudos: 155





	and i did not mean to shout, just drive

**Author's Note:**

> this work includes themes of homophobia and refers to thomas's canonical arrest for indecency.

> and i did not mean to shout, just drive,  
just get us out, dead or alive.  
the road's too long to mention —  
lord, it's something to see! —  
laid down by the  
good intentions paving company,  
all the way to the thing  
we've been playing at, darling.

— ["Good Intentions Paving Company" as sung by Joanna Newsom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQU6M0TqAAc)

* * *

"Look, I know I should have been more careful," Thomas says, as soon as the car is in gear and they're pulling away from the station. If he doesn't talk, he'll work himself into a frenzy over whatever the hell it is that just happened in the street, and Richard doesn't need to see him any more flustered than he has already. "I just… I'd never…" Seen anything like it.

"You don't get out of Downton much, do you?"

He shrugs.

"Not especially."

Not anymore, at least.

"I can tell."

Thomas can't make himself reply, so he just stares out the window. Guilt is curling in his gut, shame. This might have been the most humiliating thing he's ever experienced in his life, and he's had more than his fair share of the feeling. He should have known better, just based on his own track record, if nothing else — doesn't exactly have good luck when it comes to anything to do with any of this. But he never seems to quite know what he has until he doesn't have it anymore.

"There are… establishments, in London, if you know where to go," Richard adds. It answers the question he couldn't bear to ask. "I don't, and I don't care to. Couldn't afford to if I did, besides."

"What, it's all upper crust?"

"If you're not interested in being arrested."

He's not — after tonight, he knows that much.

Thomas squeezes his eyes closed and breathes, shakily, in through his nose, out through his mouth; he clenches his good hand into a fist and stretches his bad one out flat, switch, repeat. Old habit, but it works, sometimes.

Adrenaline had kept him alert and aware, if hardly calm, in the carriage and in the jail cell and in the street just now, too, because breaking down would've only made things worse for everyone involved, and he'd half a mind that Ellis was playing some sort of cruel trick on him when he walked out the door of the station, it was bloody _terrifying_ — but now that he's in a safe place it's like every thought and feeling he's repressed since hearing that first whistle is flooding him all at once, and he doesn't know what to do with any of them. 

"I don't blame you. I hope you know that."

He didn't.

"Speak from experience, actually," Richard adds, under his breath, and before Thomas can react to that, he goes on, "but once is enough, it has to be, there won't always be someone around to – "

"Think I've learned my bloody lesson, thank you," Thomas snaps, "not too keen on getting thrown into the back of a paddy wagon again, myself, so I'll be sure to refrain from – from feeling like a fucking human being in the future, you know, lest I forget that I'm a pervert – "

"Don't," says Richard, sharp and steely, voice raised, and it shuts him up entirely. 

Thomas puts his face in his hands.

"Never say that word in front of me again."

He feels like he might be sick.

Neither of them say anything, but it's not quiet, and certainly not silent; he's suddenly hyper aware of everything audible. The engine, the wheels on the pavement, his own heartbeat, his own breathing, Richard's, too.

"You must think I'm very stupid," he breathes into his palms, and he presses his fingers up against his browbone, tries to focus on what that feels like instead of whatever this fucking emotion is, because it's something more than humiliation, now. It's raw; it's in his entire body, his gut, his chest, his head, his hands.

He never wants to feel it again.

For a moment, he can't tell if he's being ignored or if he just wasn't loud enough, and he knows he's not going to be able to repeat himself, but then Richard answers him.

"No, Barrow, I think you're very brave."

"Don't."

He's not; he doesn't need to hear that he is.

Richard doesn't argue with him.

"Did you know what you were getting into?" he asks after a moment.

Thomas can't place his tone.

"No, I – no idea, I was just – I was staring at him, and he saw it, and – could've been a trap, for all I knew, but he was – "

Bold, and attractive, and most of all _interested._

"I…" 

He swallows.

"I don't get out of Downton much. Like you said."

Richard makes a noncommittal noise, keeps his face forward. "Might it have been a trap?"

The thought alone made him uncomfortable; the actual suggestion makes him livid.

"No," he says, through gritted teeth.

"There's no need to – "

"No! God, all right, Ellis, I don't think a man would go that far to make me think he was – was like I am, ordinary blokes aren't exactly fond of being thought they're…"

_Thought they're what,_ he thinks, because he's not about to get told off for his language again. He trails off, but Richard's tensed up; his shoulders are set and he has a tight grip on the wheel, mouth in a line.

"Is it that unbelievable someone would find me appealing?" 

His voice cracks; he squeezes his eyes shut, and then he opens them and looks at Richard again because he feels like he has to, for some reason, even if he won't look at him back.

He's pathetic, and they both know it.

"That's hardly what I meant."

Even tone, even expression, King's English.

Thomas doesn't say anything. 

Whatever he had left of an ego has been ripped to shreds, tonight, and he's not about to go setting the leftovers on fire to boot.

For what feels like miles and miles but surely can't be, he only watches Richard's hands: they're steady on the steering wheel at nine and three, but he keeps flexing and relaxing his thumbs, tapping the base. It's not a tic, but it's certainly not idle, either. Just nervous fidgeting, probably, but he can't look away.

They're both nervous, but not for the same reasons, Thomas is sure.

"What was it like?"

Takes him by surprise.

No need to explain what he means by _it,_ he supposes.

Their eyes meet, just for a half of a second, and then Thomas turns from him. It's too dark to really see out the window; he's not especially fond of watching the road when someone else is driving. But it's uncomfortable now, looking at Richard, whether at his face, his hands or anywhere else.

"Thought you spoke from experience," he mutters.

"About the inside of a jail cell."

"How – "

"Cruising." Sharp, again.

God, he's an idiot, in what world was that an appropriate question to ask —

"I've been very lucky, Mr. Barrow."

But luck runs out, doesn't it.

He takes a deep breath; it's shuddering, and the sound of it makes him more keyed up than he already was.

"Not sure I'll ever be able to repay you for this," Thomas murmurs.

Richard gives him a guarded glance. "Be more circumspect in the future."

It's a fucking proverb, apparently.

There's a petrol station up ahead; they pull over, though there's a slim chance it's manned at this hour.

But it is, luckily.

Richard gets out of the car, and Thomas leans against the window, listens to the chatter between him and the servicer. It's like he's a completely different man, suave and charming and collected — or rather, he's just gone back to the man he was, the man Thomas _thought_ he was, right up until the moment he walked out of the station and saw him in the street.

They talk for longer than they need to, he thinks, and he doesn't miss the _your wife must be fretting, out so late_ nor Richard's reply of _oh, I'll make it up to her, don't you worry._

The nausea comes back.

Then the door is open and he's starting the car again.

"Forgot on the way in," he says, "they gave me the means, couldn't very well go back without having done it, and I'll be damned if I let us get stranded."

"Put on a show out there," Thomas replies, biting.

Richard bites back.

"Put one on for the sergeant, too."

Must have.

And so they don't say anything more for a while.

The first chance he's ever had of having a friend who actually understands him, and he's ruined it.

"Never answered my question," says Richard eventually. 

"You never answered mine," he counters. 

As if he actually wants to know whether or not Richard thinks a man could be interested in him without an ulterior motive.

A beat.

"I'm sure he found you very appealing."

And now he's in a jail cell waiting for his life to be ruined, so look where that got him.

But Richard seems sincere, despite the phrasing, despite the hesitation in his voice.

"...I did, after all."

Thomas breathes in through his nose, exhales all at once from his mouth, tugs at the wrist of his glove, stares at his fingers, wishes he was smoking.

"Not so disagreeable, yourself," he says at last.

It's the furthest thing from an exaggeration.

He glances over, shy, and Richard's smiling. It's small, but it's there, and it reaches his eyes.

He does his best to return it.

"What was it like?" Richard asks again.

The real answer is, nothing he'd ever experienced before. He settles for saying "different," and stares at his lap, thinking back on the wonder he'd felt when he first walked in, trying to relive that, _only_ that, because he doesn't want it to be spoiled.

"Only a dance hall, really," he goes on, "not too far off from ordinary ones, besides the company, just – music, and dancing, and – look, I dressed down to shirtsleeves, and there were blokes kissing, probably some petting gone on, I won't deny any of that, but there was nothing – it wasn't even – there was nothing vulgar in it."

He needs Ellis to know that, he realises. 

"I didn't do anything obscene."

"I know."

"And no one else did, either, it's not like I – I'm not – it was reckless, it was illegal, shouldn't've gone off with a stranger, I know all of that, but it wasn't wrong, was it, none of it was wrong – "

"I know, Barrow," gentle.

It means more than he thought it would, to hear him say that.

"Was almost worth it," Thomas says. Almost. "Just to – to walk in and see all these men around, enjoying themselves, not having to hide or anything." He takes a breath. "I've – I've been to the regular ones, halls and cabarets and whatnot, I'm not a bloody hermit, and at those places it's like you – you go in, and you get the lay of the land and you see who's trying to get a dance in with who and what sort of folks are at which table and you learn, you know, if you're observant, how different fellows flirt with different girls, which people are established and which people are just trying something out, if a bloke's trying to find someone for a night or if a girl's looking for someone for the altar, but all that aside everyone's just there to – to have a good time, and dance with each other, enjoy themselves and the company, and it was – "

He wills his voice not to break.

"That's all it was, except it was men."

"Can't imagine," says Richard after a moment, and he sounds so _vulnerable_ — 

There's a pang in his chest, because Thomas knows that he means it.

He wouldn't have dreamed of it, either, six hours ago.

"Wish you didn't have to," he murmurs.

"Wish a lot of things, don't we, men like us."

He can't remember the last time he thought of himself as belonging to an _us,_ or if he ever has, really. It's different when it's just an anonymous shag, not that he's even had that in a while, or some frustrated Lord he'll never mean anything to at Downton, not that he's had that in years, either. The last person he loved wasn't like him. The men who were, the ones who mattered, they only mattered until they had it in for him, and then he had no problems making certain he got out on top even if it could have ruined their lives.

Never actually got that far, but it wouldn't have troubled him back then, if he had.

Because he was never a part of anything, he was just himself, and what that was, what it _is,_ was _different._ Different and terrified out of his mind about it, and it wasn't like anyone else was going to look after him if he didn't do it himself.

Maybe if he had felt like he was a part of anything things would have gone better for him.

"Thank you," he says.

He doesn't need to say what for.

"Do it again, if I had to," Richard says, which is a far cry from _it has to be enough,_ but he's smiling as he says it — to himself, more than anything, Thomas thinks.

He can't stop looking at his lips.

"Never will, if I can help it."

"I'll bet."

And this smile is at him, now, so again, he smiles back.

Funny how they can get to be so lighthearted in so little time, but the thing is, for Thomas, at least, that keeping his guard up and agonizing over every misstep and stewing in gloom takes far, far more energy than he ever really wants to use, and if he doesn't have to, if Ellis is laying down his own arms and shield, he may as well do the same.

That's another thing he can't remember ever having felt like, _may as well let down my guard if he is._

The silence now is easy; the atmosphere's changed. 

He wonders if Richard feels like he does. Everything from the drive up to York can be attributed to just getting the base message across, a Morse code of asides and touches, one short glance two long ones. But there's another question on his mind, now, and somehow it's even more frightening to up and ask that one.

Just because he's like him doesn't mean he's into him, or that he wants him. Plenty of men are under the impression that just because a bloke likes blokes he must be after every one that he comes across. (And it's never the good looking ones who talk like that, either.) When it happens to him or he hears tell of it, it makes him want to scream, so he's not exactly about to put that on Ellis.

No rule that says the only two homosexual men around have to choose each other, besides. It's a choice he's made in the past, but he doesn't have to make it now, especially not if making it could throw a wrench in anything he might actually have a chance with.

Like friendship.

So he can't just assume; he _can't,_ not when they've not made things clear.

And Thomas could make himself be satisfied if that was the case, if they were going to be friends, he knows he could, because he's learned to be satisfied with far, far less. And it's not like he doesn't want a friend.

He desperately wants a friend, is the thing, he just would maybe like to try for something more than that here and then find one somewhere else, if he can.

"On the way up," Richard says, and once again Thomas realises he's been making eyes at his mouth, "I asked you – "

"How I'm out of the ordinary."

"Yeah."

"Well, you've found out, haven't you."

His lips quirk.

Richard Ellis might just be the most self-possessed man he's ever met.

"Have I?"

"The main thing, yeah."

"But not everything."

Thomas looks at him, searching, but he's unreadable. If the dictionary had pictures, his face would be the one for opaque. "How much more do you think there is?"

"Plenty, I'm sure."

He opens his mouth, but he can't think of how to respond, and then… 

They pass a marker for an exit to Boroughbridge.

They should not have passed a marker for an exit to Boroughbridge.

" – are you quite sure you know where you're going, Mr. Ellis?"

"Got us to York earlier, didn't I?"

And now he's getting them to Ripon.

Thomas laughs, despite himself. "Not how it works."

"Tell me how it works, then."

He doesn't even have to think about how he answers.

"You pulling over and letting me drive, is how it works."

"You drive?"

"'Course I bloody drive — what, does the entire Royal Household think everyone lives in the country's incompetent?"

"Yes."

But he does pull over.

Thomas steps out of the passenger side as Richard comes around, but they don't get back in, not yet, because there's something to see.

It's still twilight, it's going to be twilight until sunrise — the horizon's got pale purple and white and orange in it, and above that is just blue, and then darker blue, dotted with stars. No black; they won't see that again until August.

"Forgot it did this," Richard says, wonder in his voice. "Not quite the same as in London." 

As they look out at the night sky, his hand finds the middle of Thomas's back, presses gently. 

He takes a deep breath. It's friendly, he tells himself, they know they're the same, they can touch each other without it meaning anything. 

In some ways it's nice, it really is, he never gets to be so casual with other men — but it's soured, too, by how much he just wants to bloody kiss him, nothing casual about it. He wants love, and sex, and romance; it's hardly been two days that they've known each other and he was dancing with another man just a few hours ago, but God, he wants it so damn much.

But one touch doesn't mean anything.

But what if it does, what if — 

"D'you ever miss living up north?" Thomas asks, because he needs to get his mind off of it or the additional twenty minutes they've got left til Downton (thirty, maybe, he's not sure he trusts himself to take shortcuts in this light and it's almost comical how off the path he's gotten them, drove right by the road they ought've been on) (he hadn't even realised they didn't take the A19) are going to be torture.

"All the time, actually. Don't make it back much."

"That's service, isn't it," he replies. There's a lump in his throat all of a sudden. He's bitter, he's so goddamn bitter, and he doesn't know why, because this is what he signed up for, all those years ago. It's not like he's got anywhere to go, either, nowhere that would make him feel like Richard seems to right now, if the look on his face is any indication. "Seven days off a year, total, no weekends — "

"Seven?"

"Half-days, Boxing Day… or have you got more than half days?"

"If only."

"Please don't tell me they don't give you Boxing Day, then — "

Richard laughs. "Just bad at arithmetic, is all."

His hand moves ever so slowly lower along Thomas's spine, until his palm is on the small of his back, and then his fingers curl around his waist, and then —

— they're apart. Richard opens the passenger door. "Best be getting on, haven't we, Mr. Barrow."

By way of an answer, Thomas makes for the driver's side. 

Before getting in, he looks at the sky and forces himself to breathe. He's had a very long night, it makes sense that he's getting emotional and twitchy and sensitive, but he's known this man for fewer than forty-eight hours; what he's feeling is beyond jumping the gun. There's no need to go baring any more of his heart and soul to Richard than he already has just because he's playing the role of knight in shining armour. 

(Armour they shed, both of them.)

And there's _definitely_ no need to keep at it just because he's into blokes and he's handsome, which might be all it is, if he's honest, just a blink-and-you'll-miss-it fancy; maybe he's fallen into the only two in the room trap, himself.

(Except then he wouldn't've felt like this before he knew, would he, and he's been feeling it since their first conversation several days ago.)

He opens the door; he gets in; he starts the car again; they're off.

Driving at least gives him something else to focus on, and if he's watching the road, he can't very well stare at Richard's lips and think about what it would be like to kiss him, can he.

It does give him more freedom to think than he needs, though, because they don't say a word for what feels like ages. Thomas doesn't remember what they were discussing before they got out, anyway, but he wishes it'd been a conversation worth continuing, whatever it was.

Richard breaks the silence yet again.

"How did you know?"

"Know what?"

"That you were a queer."

So much for not baring more of his soul this evening.

He can't keep the scoff out of his voice.

"Don't think of myself as a queer, for the record."

But he doesn't think of himself as anything, if he's honest. A word means something different depending on who's saying it, and most all of the ones he's heard have been spoiled for him in one way or another. He doesn't have a kneejerk reaction to the worst ones, not like Ellis seems to, but he's not about to call himself something people can throw back in his face when it suits them. Best not to give it a name when he doesn't have to, live his life in euphemisms — ideally kind ones. He knows what he is; a hell of a lot of other people seem to know it, too, for better or for worse. And if you're with people who get it, there's no need to say anything. 

This whole evening had been like that — for the first time in his life, he'd felt normal.

And then the police had turned up.

"That you preferred blokes, then."

Kind enough, as far as euphemisms go.

Because it's not actually a euphemism.

The thing is, there was never a defining moment; he didn't wake up one morning and think to himself, _I'll be a homosexual_ — if only it bloody worked that way — but Richard's not asking how long he's been this way, that's not even a question worth asking, he's asking how long he's known about it. 

And he can't remember not knowing.

"Always knew I was different," he says, hesitant. "Was never one of the lads pulling on plaits in the schoolyard, and all, didn't really appeal to me."

At least, until he figured out it was what all the other boys were doing and keeping out of it was sticking a target on his back, and then he often took it the furthest of any of them.

He takes a deep breath.

"But I think my parents figured it out before I did, don't ask me how."

There's no traffic behind them, or ahead, for that matter. Thomas checks the speedometer, takes them down to twenty. It's not like anyone gives a damn about the speed limit, that's not why — though if they come up on any idiots who don't know how to merge again they won't have to make it another close call — but the slower he goes the more time they'll have together.

He's starting to wonder if Richard took an alternate route for a similar reason.

Richard doesn't say anything.

"They must've done, though, because they treated me like it. Always had things the worst of all of us."

"That's horrible."

"It's over now."

He's not sure why he's said it. It's more of an answer than Richard needed.

"You?"

Silence.

Thomas looks over at him and sees him frowning.

"I mean, you don't have to, but — 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours,' and all that."

That gets a laugh out of him, at least, but it's rather an empty one. 

"Nothing special," he says, looking out of the window. "Had a friend when I was eleven or so start looking at girls, you know, seeing something in them he hadn't before."

"What, and you were jealous?"

"So jealous I never spoke to him again, in fact."

Sad as it sounds, it makes Thomas laugh, and then Richard laughs, too. 

"Funny looking back on it, but at the time I felt like I was dying, didn't know what it was I was feeling." A pause. "Once I figured it out a whole lot of things started to make sense, and I went into service, had an excuse not to – not to be like the rest, not to marry and bring up children, and far as I know I've managed to keep it quiet since."

Doesn't he wish he knew what that was like.

Well.

He doesn't, actually. Better than brushing up against a dismissal as often as he has, to be sure, but as suffocating as it is at Downton, everyone knowing but not saying anything, no one knowing at all is scarier. He's had plenty of second chances; he knows what he's up against. If Ellis were to make one mistake, everything would change in an instant.

To him, that's what's horrible. Must feel like walking a tightrope every day. 

"Don't you wish things were different?"

It's a stupid question; of course he does, they all do; they just had this conversation twenty minutes ago.

"Every day of my life, Mr. Barrow."

Thomas takes his hand off the steering wheel and sets it on Richard's knee, squeezes.

Richard clasps it, and even through his glove he can feel the warmth of his hand.

"You noticed," Richard says, just a hint of awe in his voice, and despite the mood in the car just a moment ago, Thomas laughs.

"Yes, I bloody noticed, you were driving me _mad_ – "

"You weren't exactly keeping me sound, yourself, Mr. Barrow – "

"Funny you should say that, seeing as I don't remember calling you _excellent decoration_ – "

"What should I have called you?"

There's that smile and look in his eyes, that fucking look in his eyes like he's — 

_Focus on the bloody road,_ and it's a good thing, too, because they're coming up on Topcliffe. The second he sees the marker there's a twisted feeling in his gut.

To get rid of it, he skips their turn. They can take a village road, after all — less direct, but not too out of the way.

Richard has to notice, but he doesn't say anything. He smiles, in fact.

Thomas gives him a look of his own.

"What do you want to call me?"

They'll get back to Downton eventually. 

**Author's Note:**

> this cuts close to not being canon compliant with the walk scene, i think, but i hope it isn't too too to close. some vague similarities to another drive back piece i have but if you'd been in northern england in july in the middle of the night you'd understand why i'm fixated on nautical twilight.
> 
> (and if you had been exactly the way i have, you'd fucking hate night buses, but that's neither here nor there.)
> 
> as always, find me on tumblr as [@combeferre](https://combeferre.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
